Those Irritating Verbs-as-Nouns

Good article on 'nominalisation', which doesn't just complain about conversion, but distinguishes it from affixations and explores the motivation for using a noun instead of a verb.

Those Irritating Verbs-as-Nouns
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/30/those-irritating-verbs-as-nouns/

AAVE, Creoles and double negatives

Interesting article exploring the status and nature of African American Vernacular English.

AIN'T NO REASON
A mother tongue spoken by millions of Americans still gets no respect.

By Lex Friedman.

http://the-magazine.org/12/aint-no-reason

Twitter Users Can Be Grouped Into Tribes Based on Word Choice

Larger-scale version of a project idea similar to those a couple of A2 students are pursuing...

Twitter Users Can Be Grouped Into Tribes Based on Word Choice
http://laughingsquid.com/twitter-users-can-be-grouped-into-tribes-based-on-word-choice/

Johnson's Dictionary Online

Great resource. Searchable, with facsimiles as well as transcripts (though not, apparently, complete yet) and with a Twitter feed of definitions to sign up for too. A great way to explore Johnson's seminal dictionary of 1755 -- and remember, he drops in some gems into his definitions.

http://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/

Dialects and Grammar in the UK

A readable account of some key grammatical features in English. Useful both for A2s studying Language Variation, and for AS students writing their monologues.

Lessons from a survey of British dialect grammar* - RACO

Script Formats from the BBC

Hugely interesting and useful page from the BBC offering a range of standard script formats. You aren't expected to follow these styling formats when you submit coursework -- please don't, keep formatting very simple -- but you should be aware of the elements that a director, producer and performers will need to know about in order to make sense of your script.

When you submit a script for consideration later in your professional life, you will need to follow the formatting standards -- so you may well be interested in becoming familiar with them now!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/send-a-script/formatting-your-script

Monologue Archive

Great resource of monologues organised by gender and age. These are extracted from plays rather than standalone monologues, so use with some caution as style models -- some are from poems and from considerably older texts too. Still, you can get a good sense of the range of what's possible.

http://www.monologuearchive.com

Style guide: The Guardian

I might have linked to this before. I should have. You should read it, bookmark it, refer to it whenever you're unsure about usage.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide

Journalism glossary wiki | Journalism.co.uk

Deck, subhead, lede, standfirst? This glossary of journalism terms attempts to disentangle the knotty web of conflicting in-house jargon used in US and UK periodical publishing. It's probably safe to assume that whatever we use at A Level, you'll find yourself working at a place where they'll scoff and tell you the real word (that they happen to use).

http://www.journalism.co.uk/terms-definitions-dictionary-terminology-words/s54/